With Matt Gaetz out of the picture after he withdrew his nomination as attorney general, the focus of President-elect Donald Trump's controversial Cabinet picks has now turned to Pete Hegseth, who is vying to become the next defense secretary despite facing sexual assault and other allegations against him. Regardless, some household Republican names are already standing behind him.
Among the Republican Senators supporting Hegseth are Rick Scott (R-Fla.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who came out in full support of the Fox News presenter after a closed door meeting on Monday night.
The private meeting took place in the Capito, lasted less than an hour, and involved around 10 to 12 senators on the Republican Steering Committee, a group of conservative senators led by Mike Lee (R-Utah), NBC News reported.
"He's clearly committed to making sure we have a lethal military that scares the crap out of our enemies," Scott said after the meeting.
Hegseth, an Army National Guard veteran and former weekend co-host of "Fox & Friends," has faced several misconduct allegations since he was named as Trump's pick to lead the Defense Department. He has denied any wrongdoing. Most recently, a New Yorker article published Sunday revealed the contents of a previously undisclosed 2015 whistleblower report from a veterans' organization Hegseth ran, which claimed he was repeatedly intoxicated on the job.
Last week, The New York Times also reported that Hegseth's mother sent him an email calling him an "abuser of women" amid his contentious divorce in 2018. She told the Times later that she regretted the email. Some of Hegseth's sexual abuse allegations are as recent as 2017 in a Republican women's convention in California.
Nevertheless, the Republican Senators in the Monday meeting showed their full support to the controversial figure.
"A year from now, military recruitment numbers will have skyrocketed under Secretary Hegseth," Cruz said. The Texas Republican accused Democrats of being "highly incentivized to make the confirmation hearing a spectacle" and urged the media to "have an equal amount of ink to the actual substance of the job."
He also said the media was "obsessed" with personal allegations against Hegseth and told reporters that each Cabinet nominee will be subject to a background check but potentially not from the FBI— a new point of contention among lawmakers, as some Republicans say the FBI should not be in charge of carrying out the background checks, breaking with the usual practice.
The breeze in which Hegseth and other Trump nominees will be confirmed, however, relies on the hands of other Republican Senators such as Alaska's Lisa Murkowski, Maine's Susan Collins, former Republican leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and more. These Senators have made their disagreements with Trump and his appointees known, but it remains unclear which way they will ultimately vote.
Cruz and Scott's support for Hegseth also comes amid a storm that has taken over the Cabinet nomination process. Most notably, Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz withdrew his nomination to become the new attorney general amid a plethora of sex trafficking, having sex with a minor and drug use allegations, as well as an unreleased investigation by the House Ethics Committee plagued his prospects.
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